Day 3 – Bathroom Under-Counter Organization and Knife Rust Removal

Well, here I am on day 3 and so far things seem to be going alright, other than the fact that I’m a little behind on the laundry and it looks like a “craft bomb” went off in my dining room. My niece Erin mentioned something about being worried that “the cat will be super-glued to the kitchen table”, but that hasn’t happened yet. Although, I have noticed Pumpkin casting worried looks in my direction.

I feel that at this point in my blogging life (day 3!) I should mention the classic blogger from Julie and Julia. I read the book long before it was well known and had inspired a movie starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child. I loved this book – both the cooking and the human drama fascinated me as Julie worked her way thru all 524 complex recipes in Julia Child’s legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. I hadn’t thought much about it until this week, but I’m starting to remember that Julie had a nervous breakdown or ended up on her kitchen floor screaming. I hope nothing like that happens to me – but I did find myself telling my daughter Lauren on the phone last night that I was busy and if she wanted to know what I was doing she should read my blog! Sign of a problem or just passionate dedication? Too early to tell, I think. But anyway, if you haven’t read the book I would highly recommend it.

My projects today (yes, there are two again) are more around home improvement, which is really what I need to be concentrating on. Heaven knows that my husband and I don’t need to be eating Lemon Almond Mini Muffins on a regular basis. But we do need organization, so this is my first attempt and you’ve got to start someplace!

The first project was inspired by a Pinterest post that I’ve referenced below for organizing the space under your bathroom counter. This doesn’t sound very life-altering, but after you’ve looked at my “before” picture of this space you will understand my excitement. I’m almost embarrassed to post this picture, but I want you to get an idea of the lack of organization I’m talking about. Anyway, this was a quick fix once I got going. I just cleaned everything out and threw lots away. Then I lined the space with some contact paper and added a tray to hold toilet paper that I found out in the garage with some of my daughter’s things from college.

Very unorganized cupboard

Now this is where my husband John comes in. Remember how I said that he had NO IDEA all the things I had in mind for him to help with? Well, this was one because I needed to add a tension rod to hang the cleaning bottles on and I wasn’t quite sure how to do it. So I enticed my husband John in to helping me by promising to mention him in my blog. Did I mention that his name is John? Anyway, he put the rod up and I’m quite pleased with the finished results. I may have to look into doing this in my other bathrooms as well.

The second project is unrelated and once again came from a post that I happened onto one day and said “hey, I should do that someday”. Well, today is the day. I have some knives that my husband John really likes to use but they are ugly and rusted like the ones shown in the pin. I tried to throw them away once, but he got upset so now I keep them hidden in a drawer so that visitors can’t see them and also, I don’t want my “good” knives getting any ideas.

Bad, rusty knives

This is really simple and effective. Just soak the knives in some Real Lemon juice and then scrub them with a scrubbing pad. The rust came right off and now these knives don’t have to hide in shame in the cupboard, which is good because our “good” knives are so sharp that both of us have almost sliced a finger off using them. I think we are probably just safer using a somewhat dull knife!

Well, that’s all for today. I’m not sure what I’ll do tomorrow. Usually on Fridays I come home from work and do nothing except lay on the couch and eat pizza, so this will be a challenge.